A happy ending …

I met a lady at a local networking event in Portsmouth recently who was telling me a sad story about the demise of her website.

She had had this website produced by a web development company some time ago but they had subsequently gone bust and she had lost the site and her domain name. The code was also apparently developed in Indonesia which also added to the complexity of the problem.

She was obviously concerned that her customers looking for her website, and seeing it was no longer there, would think that she had gone out of business.

She told me that she had approached 15 different web companies for help in getting back her domain name and if possible the web site. None of them had been able to help her.

I explained straight away that it was possible to retrieve her (.co.uk) domain name even if she no longer had contact details for her original provider as it would be registered through the controlling body in the UK, Nominet.

A bit of subsequent investigation with Nominet to track down the details actually revealed that because it had been some time since the domain name had expired, it had actually been cancelled and in fact was available again for purchase. The lady was overjoyed and set off immediately and re-purchased it.

The website content unfortunately was a different matter. She had no backup of the content or design files so as soon as the site went down, all the content was lost and there is no way to retrieve it.

Steve Wood owns and runs Scalar Enterprises based in Portsmouth in Hampshire. He offers a range of services including Web design, Internet marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO) to small businesses and SMEs in Hampshire and the surrounding areas.